


And Then There Were None

by Reishiin



Category: Russian Roulette - Red Velvet (Song)
Genre: F/M, Gen, fairytale, one-sided crushes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 14:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18874651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reishiin/pseuds/Reishiin
Summary: How many ways are there for a girl to die? As many as there are stars in the sky.





	And Then There Were None

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chillydown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chillydown/gifts).



> This is based off [this theory](https://mybiasisquiet.tumblr.com/post/150050846981) about the video's story.

 

Many days later, in the last of three seconds between the gunshot and the hard reset, Pink will remember that her prince is a _tennis_ player.

 

* * *

 

 

Afternoon of a sweltering day in the height of summer, at the qualifying heats for the annual regional high school tennis tournament. Everyone in the audience stands is only there to get school participation points and just wants to go home instead.

Five different doubles matches are going on at the same time, Pink is only paying attention to one of them: the court on the far left, where a duo from her school is playing an away team. Both boys from the home team are wearing white, and the usual attire of the away team is pale blue, but one of the players on that team is wearing black.

She stands up, and walks the half-circle round the stadium so she can see better, and has to push through a crowd of equally curious girls to get to the front. The boy's deep brown eyes are locked in concentration on the ball bouncing off the line in the opponent's half of the court, and his hair, dark and shining as the interior of an inkwell, flies out behind him as he runs to return the serve.

Later, after the match has concluded, that boy is immediately mobbed with fans.

_"Big brother, you play very well."_  
_"Big brother, which school are you from?"  
_ _"Big brother—"_

The individual questions are all lost in the cacophony of voices. The boy just smiles and nods politely in lieu of answering, and rejoins a small group of his friends at the entrance to the locker rooms far away from the stands.

Pink loves him on sight, of course; she thinks every girl in this sports stadium who had noticed him did. But she spots her sisters amidst the crowd of girls, their coloured hair bright under the afternoon sun, and knows that they had all seen him too. They were each intelligent girls, and none of them knew what each other was thinking, or could be sure of each other's intentions. So none of them said anything.

That night, as they went to sleep in their respective beds, they all dreamed of the same thing—their raven-haired prince charming, and how nice it would be, if only they could have him.

 

 

 

They wake up the next morning in the dollhouse of their childhood, five beds side-by-side in the biggest room on the second floor, the headboards color-coded to each of them.

Pink is the first to open her eyes, and sees that her sisters are still sleeping, so she is also the first to go downstairs and the first to go outside. Midmorning over this place of dreams, the sun is bright overhead, and she throws up one arm to shield her eyes from its glare.

A sharp noise breaks the serene silence of the morning: the hoarse caw of a raven perched in a nearby tree.

"You look familiar," Pink says, but before she can observe closer, the front door creaks open: her sisters have also awoken, and hurried downstairs to see what is happening.

"Where are we? What are we doing here?" Gold asks.

The raven tilts its head and eyes each of the five girls in turn. The sun hangs in the sky directly behind its wings, making it hard to see. "I will answer one question from each of you. Ask wisely."

 

 

 

Gold: Where is this place?

The raven: Isn't there a saying, 'love is a battlefield'?

Red: Who are we fighting against?

The raven: Your rivals in love, of course.

Brown: How do we win?

The raven: By proving the strength of your love.

Orange: What do we get if we win?

The raven: That's a se~cret.

Pink: When will we be allowed to go home?

The raven, broken-voiced and beady-eyed: When it becomes clear which of you loves most.

 

 

 

 

In the bedroom on the wall there is a scoreboard, and on that scoreboard there is a number written next to each of their names. All zeroes, right now, but that may soon change. Pink holds her breath. Overhead, the clock is ticking to the beat of her heart.

On the staircase landing, a thread from Orange's top catches on a splinter from the handrail, and begins to unravel as she descends the stairs. Brown, behind her, is flicking her lighter on and off as she always does; it's a nervous habit she has always had. But then she puts the flame next to the splinter of wood, and Pink sees her forehead crease in consideration.

In the real world it would be simple to check the impulse, but this is a place of dreams. There is no need to hold back. So Brown sets the thread on fire, and watches the flames travel down its length. At the heat at her back, Orange turns around with an expression of surprise.

All at once, the world blinks. Like a shift in time and space, where left becomes right and up becomes down, and the end goes back to the very beginning.

Now Orange is back of the top of the stairs, the hem of her top intact instead of unraveling, and she looks down at them as if nothing had happened at all. But this time she doesn't start walking down the stairs.

Pink looks over at the others: they are all watching Orange with a curious and nervous intensity, so they must know what had happened (will happen? Will not happen?). Or they at least remember.

On the scoreboard on the wall, next to Brown's name, the number glows and changes from zero to one.

_It's about killing, then? That's how you raise the score?_

_It's a love game,_ writes Orange in their shared diary that night, then passes the book and the pen on. _Five of us, and one of him. Therefore only one of us can win._

It's war after that, if a war where no one dies can be considered a war. Each of them kills, but no one stays dead. Each of them is hurt, but none of them resents.

 _It's not personal,_ Gold writes the next day. _No lasting damage, no lasting harm._

Each night, they tally their kills on the scoreboard on the wall, and each morning, they open their eyes to the day anew.

Brown writes: _How many ways are there for a girl to die?_

Red writes back: _As many as there are stars in the night sky._

 

 

Time passes like this, an impossibly bright childhood summer where every day is the same, one heartbeat, one second fading into the next.

After some days they discover that he exterior of the house is spacious, too. After they have exhausted everything to do indoors, they head outside and play badminton and tennis and basketball. _That boy plays tennis too,_ Pink thinks, and sits down on the court while her sisters play. It makes her feel closer to him.

Out of all of them, she is the only one who has never pushed someone down the stairs, or rigged a falling plank over a closed door, or shoved someone into the empty swimming pool. Pink doesn't know why she doesn't kill, either, in this childhood playground where nobody can die.

Maybe it doesn't matter which of them has him in the end, as long as he is happy.

 

 

 

 

 _I think we're close,_ Red wrote in the diary last night. _I think tomorrow is the day we decide._

A loaded gun rests on the kitchen table. The raven had brought it earlier that day, flying in through the open window with the weapon strapped to its body, and delicately picked apart the string securing the weapon to its leg. Now Red checks the chambers: six slots, one bullet. Before the eyes of the others, she clicks it back in place and spins the chamber. Six chances, one shot. One last death to settle the score.

They sit around the table as always, and pass the weapon between them. Click, pass, click, pass, click. Gold hands Pink the gun, holster-first. Fourth in line, and the shot has not yet been fired.

Pink puts the gun over her heart and pulls the trigger. The recoil slams back against her finger and she has just enough time, before the world resets, to realize the score.

The bullet of love is meant for her? But she is dead last in points on the scoreboard.

Yet, it occurs to her, that her prince charming plays tennis

And in tennis, love means zero, doesn't it?

Does that mean she has won after all?

Maybe, she thinks. Maybe, maybe, maybe. An infinite corridor of maybes stretches out before her.

Outside the house, the sunlight streaming in through the window is blinding in its radiance, punctuated only by the shadow of a raven's wings and the bird's broken call.

This time, there is no blip in reality as the world resets.

Pink opens her eyes and she is in her own bed, in her own room. Her alarm is ringing at top volume and Gold stands in the doorway, hands on hips. "Time to get up for school!"

Everything is just the way it was before, as if none of it had ever happened at all.

_Just a dream... or was it?_

Pink's hand, under her pillow, touches something hard and cold in the shape of a heart.

That afternoon, at the semifinals of the regional tennis tournament against G____ High School, her prince isn't there. Maybe he was from another school after all, one that has black sports uniforms instead of pale blue, and had visited here only for that one match. Maybe he had lost that match, and gone home.

Pink attends every single tennis match from then on, but up until she graduates, she never sees her prince again.

Once, she asked her sisters, "Do you remember the boy with the black sports uniform?"

"Huh?" Red had replied. "None of the high schools in this region have a black sports uniform."

But even if no one else remembers, Pink does. And up until she graduates, every day, she wears under her school uniform that pink heart-shaped pendant pierced through with a bullet hole.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

And maybe, maybe, that boy dressed in black playing tennis that day on the sunlit court wasn't a high school student at all, but the prince of a twilit kingdom who steals the love from girls' hearts as they sleep. Maybe the colour of his hair is also the colour of a raven's feathers. Maybe he always declines karaoke when invited by schoolfriends, saying he has no singing voice at all.

 


End file.
